Flags and banners have been used for centuries as decorations as well as identifying symbolic means of status, and particularly for identifying or symbolization of military units, ships, encampments and other official facilities and installations. Such flags have usually been either flown from supporting flagpoles or from shorter flagstaffs on vehicles and from windows, or flown from flagstaffs or flagpoles particularly designed to display such flag in an elevated and visible position. Flagpoles are usually substantially vertically oriented, while flagstaffs are angled with some elevation for visibility and to allow the flag to be lowered and removed during inclement weather as well as at night, essentially to protect the flag and make the flag last longer. Such protective handling has developed over the years into respect for the flag as a symbol, particularly as a symbol of a political subdivision, or for example, when used as a symbol of a country or state. The flags traditionally are made from cloth of varying degrees of substantiality, being subject to wear caused by wind which is frequently almost continuously moving or “flapping” the flag. Flags are also exposed even when elevated at some height to atmospheric soiling and degeneration of the cloth of which it is made by exposure to the elements including sun, rain and excessive wind, not to mention actual physical and chemical deterioration of its component fabric or fabrics.
While flags have frequently been also flown on short flagpoles or flagstaffs attached to buildings, and particularly upon short poles mounted in special brackets upon windowsills and the like, which short window display poles or staffs make the flag more evident to passersby rather than merely draping such flag out the window involved, it has not usually been convenient to mount these flags in place in relatively immobile, more visually evident positions. The use of small decorative garden flags has, however, in recent years become quite prevalent as a result of the development of corrosion resistant metal support hangers or mountings having a ground engaging end which can be merely pressed into the ground, and also having a crosspiece welded or otherwise secured to the top or opposite end of the vertical mounting support on which the flag is carried, which crosspiece stabilizes the directional display of the flag. The relatively small size of conventional stands or decorative garden flag mountings enables the ground engaging end of the vertical support or pole to be easily pressed into the ground for vertical support or mounting of a flag or banner in a “display mode.” In modern usage, decorative garden flags are usually meant purely for decorative purposes or “to make a statement” concerning the displayer or owner which such owner believes is worthwhile making as a part, or expression, of such owner's personality, the great majority of modern decorative flags being displayed as an artistic statement or other statement of the owner's life rather than a statement of allegiance to a country or political subdivision.
It is desirable to orient the flag or banner supported on a garden flag mounting in a manner and at an angle whereby the content of the flag or banner is stretched out for good visibility at all times, rather than merely being flown from a pole and subject to being visible only from a position transverse to the wind and then only when the wind is sufficient to stretch out the flag. A prime consideration or desirable characteristic for a decorative flag is for it to be stretched out both vertically and horizontally, usually from its upper mounting edge and for it to be stretched out or unfurled by gravity from its upper attachment edge towards its other edges. Consequently, while customarily or traditionally politically oriented flags are “flown” or displayed from a flagpole, decorative flags are more frequently suspended, draped, or displayed from either an angled pole such as that attached to a windowsill or porch riser, or simply draped or depended from a window, but, as indicated above, a decorative flag as usage has developed is more usually displayed from a horizontal arm of a vertical support thrust into the ground in the garden of a residence or the like.
The horizontal support of a decorative flag may be and usually is a crosspiece extending from a vertical support. Since a horizontal arm extending from a round or other shaped small diameter vertical support pressed into the ground is likely to be twisted by wind force to extend away from the wind, depending upon the rigidity of the support, several different means have been developed to maintain the orientation of the support pole in the proper direction to retain the visibility the owner desires for the decorative flag. Display mountings for decorative flags typically comprise a weatherproof metal stake adapted for easy insertion into the ground because of limited cross section, with a horizontal crosspiece or metal member extending from near the top of the stake to which a flag may be draped or suspended. The supporting stakes usually have a U-shaped ground engaging section including a short horizontal member extending from the lower portion of the metal stake to the side and a vertical section depending downwardly from the outer end of the horizontal member that is inserted into the ground to the side of the supporting stake and usually directly under the horizontal metal member from or upon which the decorative flag is suspended. Very frequently, extra decorative metal ornamentation is added to the top of the support piece, or extra metal decorations are added to or about the upper flag supporting member to provide further decoration to the flag support as a whole. Such arrangement allows the decorative flag to be supported on the crosspiece with its lateral surface disposed in the direction it is intended to be displayed, with the amount of rotation available to the crosspiece being dependent primarily on the stiffness of the metal mounting material and how securely the mounting is supported in the ground surface.
The majority of decorative garden flags have been restricted in size because of the complications in adequately supporting a large exposure of flag in gusting or elevated winds, the force of the wind against a flag tending to increase geometrically rather than linearly with increasing wind velocity. Within the last few years, however, new larger decorative flags have been increasing in popularity and the decorative flag supporting means have by necessity been enlarged. Difficulties have been encountered, however, in scaling up the size of the supporting or mounting structure, particularly when its height becomes greater than three or four feet.
One of these difficulties has been that a single supporting post more than four or five feet in height becomes heavy and unwieldy to carry, ship, or transport. In addition, the provision of a rod stiff enough to withstand the wind force encountered becomes difficult to insert into the ground by ordinary downwardly directed hand pressure. It must also be kept in mind that decorative flag display products are to a considerable extent the subject of impulse buying by persons who just wish to buy the product, carry it home and set it up with as little assembly and overall effort required as possible. Special preparations or precautions are considered by the customer as definite negative factors which may be avoided or averted by simply not purchasing the flag display product in the first place.
It is not unusual, when confronted with the necessity of decreasing the length of a pole for shipping purposes or the like, to break such pole into one or more separate sections, which separate sections include a structure for securing the sections together, such as intermediate socket type fixtures or fittings, so that the sections may be pieced together in cooperating lengths to form a single pole. These socket arrangements may be formed of an outer tubular form on the end of one stake section and a solid or reduced tubular end on an adjacent or cooperating section. Various ways of retaining the two sectional lengths of decorative flag supports together have been practiced or adopted in the past, including insertion of a reduced tubular end having a lesser diameter into the larger diameter outer tubular form. However, much difficulty is encountered in connecting the supports together with a sufficiently close fit or tolerance that the flag support pole or crosspiece does not rotate with even light wind forces an unacceptable amount, without adding extra hardware to the supports, which is expensive and slows the manufacturing process.
The present inventor has developed an effective and practical solution to this problem. In one embodiment, tubular connected sections of the main, or mast, arm of the decorative flag support of the present invention are necked down at one end by any suitable physical process, such as a controlled swaging operation, for insertion into the open tubular end of an adjoining main mast section with a close fit. In addition, a single axial ridge is provided on both the swaged section and adjoining main mast section, which prevents the two sections from relative rotation with respect to each other when joined together and exposed to elevated wind pressures or forces. The tubular stacked sections also provide a sturdy appearing mounting pole upon which a wide angle cross section or metal piece can be mounted at the top and be supported without difficulty.
While it is desirable for the supporting pole to have a somewhat enlarged diameter so that mating cross sections can be securely mounted together, it is also desirable in at least one embodiment that the ground insertion section of the supporting pole be formed of smaller solid diameter stock that can be more easily driven or pressed into the ground. The ground insertion assembly may be formed in different ways, such as in one embodiment being comprised of a single solid U-shaped section formed of a crosspiece with two ground insertable leg members extending downwardly. Alternatively, in another embodiment the two ground insertion leg members may be physically separate members, one comprising the main or principal ground insertion member which is straight and extending in an overlapping manner with or from the support tube, while the other is in the form of an “L” shaped section welded to the bottom of the tubular section with a ground insertion member extending from the end parallel to the main or principal ground insertion member. Such ground insertion members in at least one embodiment may be spaced apart from each other about nine to fifteen inches, and in at least one embodiment the ground insertion members should be substantially parallel to each other to allow for convenient insertion into the ground.
Since the flag display elements of the present invention are intended to be easily assembled by a homemaker or the like, the pole elements should not only be easy to assemble, but also secure and sturdy enough to hold together and not pull apart as a result of exposure to wind or other atmosphere disturbances such as rain, sleet and hail, plus accidental impacts by objects thrown by children, lawn maintenance equipment, or the like. Fitted together tubular or annular elements have been frequently held together by detents of one form or another such as, for example, a ball mounted or held on one section and held in place by a cage or the like, or by a detent on the end of a section of spring metal which may be displaced to the side by sliding the other end into an orifice on the adjoining section. All these expedients, while simple, tend to add significant aggregate cost to the structure, and also to corrode relatively quickly in outdoor environments. The present inventor's arrangement, however, does not require any such additional holding elements, although as discussed below in at least one embodiment the lower ground engaging section and center section of the tubular mounting may be secured together by an additional screw type fastener to prevent these two sections from pulling apart when the mounting is gripped and pulled or forced upwardly to remove the stake from engagement with the ground surface.
In addition, the solid metal ground insertion rod assembly, welded or otherwise attached to the lowest tubular mast extension for support of a decorative flag by insertion into the ground is, in accordance with the larger scale of the decorative flag supporting assembly of the present invention, in one embodiment provided with a diagonal brace passing or extending from the end of the ground insertion structure and attached to the lowest or bottom tubular mast section. This brace has proven to be also a convenient handle for use both in pressing the ground piercing member into the ground as well as a handle for manually removing the assembly from the ground when it is desired to move the flag mounting from its location in a garden setting or environment. Such diagonal bracing has unexpectedly been found, therefore, in one embodiment to constitute a major improvement in the structure of the decorative flag mounting construction of the invention.
The present inventor has therefore found, at least in the provision of extended sections of overlapped tubular stock for the provision of elevated mounts for decorative flags in garden environments, that the conventional complicated or involved detents for holding overlapped metal tubular members together is unnecessary, and furthermore, not only are the usual multiple arrangements for interlocking detents to hold two overlapping sections of tubular stock together not necessary or desirable, but that instead a simple swaging or cold deformation of an outwardly facing surface that is to be secured within a matching inwardly facing surface and including a single pair of matching axial ridges will be very effective in preventing circumferential movement between the two matching surfaces. It has been further found surprisingly that since the two circumferential surfaces are fairly tightly fitted together in any event, that the placement of an axial groove in or upon the inner fitting surface, or, for convenience in swaging, the outwardly facing surface, is very effective in preventing the inner circumferential construction from rotation in the outer circumferential construction, because the axial groove has been essentially marked or swaged in a transcircumferential direction or across or crosswise to any such transcircumferential direction or movement such differential rotation between the circular pieces can be substantially inhibited. Even further, the present inventor has discovered that only a single axial groove is required for this purpose, and in fact that the provision of additional axial grooves reduces the effectiveness of this arrangement.
In general, close fitting circular sections are seldom removed from each other by a straight pull in opposite directions. Rather, the usual movement or procedure is for the two sections to be moved circumferentially in small increments whether such movement is caused by wind pressure or by hand or circumferential tool force. As the two sections are differentially moved with respect to each other circumferentially, they also tend to slide longitudinally with respect to each other. When the force is removed, the sections will be found, if examined minutely, to have slid apart slightly, and with or upon the next force being applied, the two pieces will be found to have slid even further apart as minor differential rotation was effected. By the law of averages, therefore, over a period a series of incrementally applied forces will tend to differentially work an outer circumferential member in a direction which will steadily twist and remove an outer member from engagement with an inner member until the two become completely disconnected. Alternatively, even if the sections do not tend to move longitudinally with respect to each other, they will tend to do so with less force if exposed to a rotational force simultaneously with a longitudinally exerted force. The cure for disconnection of an outer surrounding member from an inner included member, therefore, is to prevent circumferential movement of the outer member on or with respect to the inner member. As explained above, the present inventor has realized that this phenomenon may be taken advantage of by the expedient of applying a single axial groove to the inner and outer members of interengaging circumferential members, whereby the simple expedient of providing an axial groove on the joined surfaces of the inner and outer connecting members is surprisingly easy and practical and has solved a serious problem in a simple and expeditious manner.